The Credential of H.P. Blavatsky

The Credential of H.P.
Blavatsky

THEOSOPHY, Vol. 14, No. 7, May, 1926
(Pages 289-291; Size: 9K)

From: http://www.wisdomworld.org/setting/hpb.html

Theosophy Magazine
site (http://www.theosophycompany.org/)

H. P. BLAVATSKY died May 8, 1891. As a person she ceased to be
on that date. All that survives is a name, a memory, one of countless
other names and memories, the remains of a generation almost extinguished
and fast fading into the indistinguishable monument we call the
past. She is now a mere episode in written and unwritten History
-- the occidental term for the Skandhas of the human race and the
personal human being. As a body, as a mind, as an actor, she has
played her part, passed from the stage and been replaced.

But the play goes on. The great drama of life and death, of good
and evil fortune, is not of yesterday and to-day only but of all
time, and each new person, each incoming generation must perforce
become both spectator and actor in the Mysteries. Like many another,
H. P. Blavatsky was one who purported to speak from behind the screen
of time, to bear witness and to teach of things hidden from mortal
sight, even that of the wisest among us. What are the credentials
of H. P. Blavatsky, Messenger of the Masters of Wisdom, Elder Brothers
of the human race, to us Their younger brothers in the School of
Life?

Nearest to us of all such Messengers, the claims or credentials
of H. P. Blavatsky are of vital moment to all searchers for truth
and are more readily and searchingly possible of examination. To
determine between claims and credentials is the prime necessity
of the student of life and action. As matters stand from generation
to generation the average searcher for truth is bewildered by the
cloud of witnesses, by the apparently hopeless contradictions in
their testimony, by his own inability to distinguish the true from
the false in witnesses and in their testimony. The experience of
the race is that of a continual alteration and alternation of opinion.
We reach a decision one day, one generation, only to reverse it
the next, though all men are aware that the essential facts of life
never vary, that Truth must be in its own nature changeless.

Unless we are prepared to admit, and to ourselves act upon the
admission, not only that Truth exists but that we are capable of
discerning the truth in all things, we but stultify our Self in
giving any attention at all to the search for Truth as reflected
in such mighty subjects as philosophy, religion, ethics, science.
If we contradict the terms of our own inmost Being, if we render
our Self foolish, incompetent to prove all things and to hold fast
to that which is true, if we allege our Self insane and incapable
of determining Truth, who or what can validate the Truth to us,
can make us reasonable?

But, granting that we are "open to reason," it must follow
that we are bewildered, that we err and wander in our search for
Truth, not because credentials and evidences are lacking to us,
but because we do not examine them in the light of reason and experience.

The all-inclusive credential of H.P.B. as messenger and witness
is that she addressed herself exclusively to the intelligence of
mankind -- that is to say, to the universal experience, the common
sense, the innate reason of all men, therefore of every man. Her
teachings were put forward as in no sense a revelation. She appealed
to the Truth in us, to the truth as known to us, to our capacity
to assimilate additional truth -- to what the Masters have in common
with us, to what all men have in common with the Masters, as the
bridge of progress, the Antaskarana of spiritual, as of all other
evolution.

What she knew that is to us unknown, she put forward as a theory,
as a working hypothesis which every man is invited to examine, test,
verify for himself, step by step, proceeding from the known to the
unknown.

Compare and contrast this credential with those submitted by the
revealers, the prophets, the priests of every religion and of every
sect. Always it is a revelation of one sort or another from a higher
to a lower being -- a revelation which demands belief, which in
its very nature is impossible of proof or disproof by the ones to
whom it is offered, and which promises rewards or threatens penalties
to those who do or do not accept it out of hand on the ipse dixit
of the revealer.

Compare and contrast the credential of H.P.B. with the "working
hypotheses" so freely offered and accepted in modern "exact"
science -- working hypotheses which do not "work," and
of which there is not a single one submitted by any scientist that
other equally eminent scientists have not exposed as faulty, incomplete,
contradicted by known facts. Not a theory or hypothesis propounded
by H. P. Blavatsky has ever been upset philosophically, logically,
historically or evidentially. Hundreds and thousands have tried
it, as invited first and foremost by H.P.B. herself. The most that
any have achieved has been a "Scotch verdict": "Not
proven." This is an admission of her impregnability; a confession
of their own inability to impeach her testimony after rigid cross-examination.

Invariably the religious or scientific investigator of the credential
of H.P.B. has tested her theories in the light of his own. If her
propositions agreed with his, well and good; if not, they must be
false or erroneous, "not proved," -- that is, "not
approved." Assume for one moment that her theories are true,
and the inverted logic of these investigators is instantly self-evident.
They did not, and they do not, compare and contrast theory with
theory, hypothesis with hypothesis, for relative consistency and
synthesis, for relative accord with known facts. It stands to-day
as it has stood from the beginning; no known fact conflicts with
or discredits a single theorem advanced by H.P.B., while her propositions
do shed the light of reason on all the problems of life, all the
missing links in science and religion; do bring into order and relation,
into ethical and moral purposiveness, all the otherwise bewildering
and confused mass of the facts which constitute the experience of
the race and the individual; do point out the causes of those failures
and miseries which our religions and our sciences seek in vain to
explain or alleviate.

The individual and personal credential of H. P. Blavatsky to every
sincere searcher for truth is the spiritual fact that her mission
is educative. She was and is a Teacher of truth. It is through the
Hall of Learning alone that we can hope to arrive at Wisdom on our
own account. Not miracle, not prayer, not revelation, not even the
devotion of implicit faith can ever bring any of us one step nearer
to the Masters of Wisdom, to real Knowledge. Her life, her labor,
her writings, constitute a School of Life, into which may enter
whosoever will to acquire instruction in the mysteries of Self;
instruction in Self-knowledge, Self-discipline, Self-control --
and prove out to himself and for himself the same credential of
The Wisdom.